


In Sickness & Health

by dixiethumbelina



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Fever, Fluffy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, angsty fluff, temporary illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:35:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5365061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiethumbelina/pseuds/dixiethumbelina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cougar is NOT a good patient. Jensen knew that before he went into this mess, but this is getting downright ridiculous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Sickness & Health

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So, this is the beginning of what is essentially a series of 'Lets Hurt Cougar' fics. All temporary damage, I swear! Thank you so much for all your lovely kudos and my comments, you guys are so sweet :)  
> Thank you very much to the loveliest friends I could ask for - Demeanor, EygptianFireFly, 74Days and Gutterson. You guys rock and inspire me to keep going even when I am entirely sure I suck in so many ways and should never post fics ever again. I do apologise for the fact that I don't speak Spanish AT ALL, and have stolen all translations off google. If I fucked anything up, please, let me know.  
> Hope you all enjoy this! As always, I live off comments and love, and feel free to come find me at dixiethumbelina.tumblr.com

Jensen isn’t entirely sure there’s anything more stressful and heartbreaking in the world than having to strip and bathe your feverish, hallucinating, and entirely irrational boyfriend. That is, unless it happens to be _keeping_ said boyfriend in the bath for any reasonable length of time. Because that’s starting to look nearly impossible.

“For fuck’s sake … Cougar! Get back in here!” Jensen rockets out of the bath after the sniper, splashing even more water across the already the slippery floor on his way. How the hell someone so sick moved so damn fast is beyond him - their exits were maybe two seconds apart and Cougar has already dashed across the room, slid on the wet tile and landed almost under the sink. It’s not at all graceful, and Jensen thinks Cougar’s knee is going to be aching when he’s back to normal, but he manages to squeeze down into the gap relatively easily. Jensen has to mark that as fucking impressive, because from what he can tell, Cougar can’t really see at the moment. 

He’d marvel at the wonders of Cougar (probably accidentally) finding what he thinks is a suitable hiding place whilst blind and fucked up, but there are priorities. Like getting the idiot back in the bath before his brain cooks. Jensen can only thank anything that’s listening that Cougar’s strength is tapped nearly dry, so unlike the first ‘get-back-in-the-fucking-water-you-gigantic-dumbass’ fight, it shouldn’t take him too long to retrieve said dumbass. 

“How the fuck did you fit there anyway?” The space is narrow and low, and Jensen knows for a fact that 6 year old June-Bug can’t fit in there, because she’s tried. Cougar’s a 5’10” wiry fucker, and can contort himself to do things that blow Jensen’s mind normally, but still, there should be limits to where he can squeeze himself. “Do you compress your bones or something? C’mere, Mr Stubborn.” Jensen reaches out, shivering a little in the damp room, and wraps his hand around one wet, tanned forearm. 

He gets a tremoring, but still vicious snarl in return, and a set of sharp-as-fuck fingernails digging into his wrist. “Ow, ow, _ow_! Are those claws? I swear you have claws …” Jensen lets himself trail off, feeling endlessly guilty for the terror painted across Cougar’s face, the way his eyes flash over Jensen before darting around the room again. “I know you’re scared, but it’s alright. I’d never hurt you, and normally you’d get that, but right now I don’t know who the fuck you think I am. So maybe it makes sense to you.”

While he’s talking, he manages to haul a rather weakened Cougar out into the open, not letting go until he’s a limp and ferociously trembling heap on the tiles. The sniper drops his arm onto the edge of the bath and lets his head follow, dark hair falling down into what’s left of the water. He’s panting and worn thin, eyelids shadowed and bruised from two days with no sleep. Jensen wants nothing more than to let him go back to bed, but Cougar’s still too hot. And not in the fun way, more in the ‘he’s-got-a-103.6-degree-fever’ way. He knows he’s said everything out loud, along with a bunch of random shit that Jensen doesn’t even remember, and it seems pointless because Cougar hasn’t shown any sign of hearing him for at least half an hour. But Jensen can’t stop, not when there’s a chance that Cougar will catch a word, a phrase, even just the sound of his voice, anything that’ll let him know he’s safe.

The sniper lets out something that, on anyone else, Jensen would call a whimper, bottom lip bitten red while he mumbles between ragged breaths. Jensen’s seen those beautiful lips move over those same shapes so many times that the fact that Cougar’s nearly lost his voice means nothing. Cougar’s praying. Jensen doesn’t know what for, exactly, but that doesn’t matter. Cougar praying does not mean good things, even when they’re following good things. Because that just means he’s praying that they don’t go away. 

“Aww, Cougs …” Jensen crouches down and reaches out to touch the smaller man, flinching when Cougar jerks against his hand, but not pulling away. He makes out what could be his name whispered on cracked lips, but it could also be the start of something considerably more swear-y. Given that it’s Cougar, it could easily be either. He twitches hard under Jensen’s hand, head falling back unsupported when his pillowing arm flails weakly. He makes no effort to move it back, even when his breathing turns shallow and painful. Jensen’s never seen Cougar look so … tired. And it fucking hurts to see, because he’s seen the sniper in serious shades of shit before, but this is a whole new level of badness.  
He squeezes sweaty fingers, crooning nonsense under his breath when Cougar shudders and tries in vain to pull away. “Sorry, buddy. I know you don’t like being touched right now, but your neck being all kinked up is seriously not going to help either of us.” 

He runs his fingers up too-hot skin, stroking over Cougar’s shoulders and wrapping gently around the side of his neck, before tilting his head to an angle that’s more conducive to proper breathing. Although, that might be a moot point, seeing as Cougar hasn’t breathed properly since he came down with this lovely bug. Jensen still isn’t sure if he should strangle Pooch for that, but considering that Jolene and her wonderful, amazing, completely under-appreciated nursing skills are the only things keeping Cougs out of hospital, Jensen thinks he might let it go. “Or I’ll let you take your revenge instead, huh Cougs? It’s not fair he got the sniffles and you ended up with this monstrosity. You should shoot him in the ass. I would, if I were you.” 

Cougar, rather scarily, doesn’t fight having his head shifted. He just groans and shudders against the cold tiles, eyes fluttering open enough for Jensen to see bloodshot whites before they fall closed again. “Jake?” 

“Yeah, Cougs, I’m right here. I’m the only one, I kicked everyone else out for you, you grumpy cat, you.” It was more that there’d been a unanimous vote that he be the one to stay behind and de-arm and wash the pissy sniper, although he never would have left Cougar the way he was. But he’d stayed for Emma too, seeing as her bathroom’s only just been finished after 3 years and Cougar was about to smash it to pieces in his attempts to kill everyone but Jensen. Actually, he was mostly only trying to kill Roque, but it seemed safer to send everyone else to a less hostile part of the house. 

“Want Jake. Hurts.” Cougar sounds positively _plaintive_ , and his throat shifts as he swallows back what Jensen hopes is not the very tiny amount of water and rehydration mix that he’d been able to get into him earlier.

“Right here, Cougs. We’ll get you back in the bath, get some more of Jolene’s kick-ass pills in you in …” Jensen flicks his eyes to his watch and groans. Fuck, still too far away. “In an hour, and the hurt’ll go away.” 

_"Jake._ Por favour, come back. Perdóname, I’m sorry, I am …” Cougar peters off with a miserable whine, reaching out blindly for what he thinks is already gone, and Jensen knows it’s not anatomically possible but his heart still feels like it’s trying to crack its way out of his chest. So he shifts and very gently tugs the sniper’s free hand up to his own face, hoping his newfound, admittedly barely thought-out plan isn’t about to backfire horribly on him. 

It doesn’t, because Cougar’s smart, and the minute his fingers touch the rims of Jensen’s glasses (and Jensen can’t help the ‘fuck you’ in his head, because that right there is a damn good reason to keep wearing NSI specs, no matter what his superiors say) he heaves a huge, relieved sigh that has to have hurt his abused throat. _”Jake._ Dios, please. Stay.”

Jensen tugs at his limp puddle of a boyfriend, pulling him off the bath’s edge and into his arms. Cougar wraps around him like an octopus, barely audible whimpers getting pressed into Jensen’s shoulder. “I’m a bit hurt that you think I’d leave you for any reason under the sun, short of death. And even then I’d follow your ass around. Have I _ever_ left you when you needed me? No, not even when you had that particularly awful stomach bug in Turkey, remember?” Jensen shudders at the memory. Poor Cougar. “So if I didn’t leave you temporarily then, when any other smart person would, what crazy little demon in your head’s been making you think I’d leave you now?”

He kisses the top of a sweat-soaked tangle of hair and breathes in, nuzzling down into the curls. Under the pervasive smell of sickness, there’s oil and spice and gun oil, things Jensen doesn’t think he’ll ever smell again without thinking of Cougar. “Love you, you crazy fucker. Love you so much.” And he does, just as much as he loves Emma and June.

Cougar moans and twitches, shivering hard enough to clack his teeth together, and Jensen didn’t think it was possible for his fever to rise, but he’s sure it has. His sigh is overly loud in the now quiet room. “Bath time again, babe.”

This is going to be a looong night. Jensen’s just glad Cougar isn’t trying to kill him anymore.


End file.
